


Imposter Syndrome

by Aeris_Blue



Category: Undertale
Genre: Conversation, Mentions of Alcohol Abuse, Some angst, before the fall - Freeform, two bros - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 01:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeris_Blue/pseuds/Aeris_Blue
Summary: It’s very late, or impossibly early, as Grillby works to close up his little bar in Snowdin for the night. Everything is where it is supposed to be until someone literally pops in.





	Imposter Syndrome

The candle behind the sign that advertised the business’s availability was snuffed out, the front door was locked, as were the liquor cabinets, the kitchen had been swept to such a point one had to wonder if the place even served food as there wasn’t a crumb in sight. The dining room floors glistened as a mop was pushed delicately across the floors until they matched the pristine condition of the kitchen. The chairs were flipped onto the table so the mop could be pressed underneath before they were returned to their proper place so the table tops could be cleaned. 

He’d taken a bit more care than usual, the night hours had long since stretched into morning ones, and he was beginning to wonder if trying to sleep was even worth it. Cleaning was mindless busy work but it was enjoyably mindless allowing the flames own thoughts to wander and wind down from the business of the day. He returned all of his cleaning supplies to their proper cabinets, which were meticulously organized by how often he utilized each of them, before returning to the dining room.

He let out a long sigh as he sat against one of his booths looking up at the ceiling with a dim flicker in his flames. He was tossing back and forth whether he should go home and sleep in his bed or stay here to sleep on the couch when finally he resolved himself to clear the grime from the rafters. He sat up rubbing his hands against the sides of his face as he worked his way back to his cleaning cabinet. Something was twisting around in his soul that warned him sleeping wasn’t going to be a good idea tonight.

He placed his elbows against the bar rubbing his fists against his speck like eyes when the sound of wooden tables and chairs clattering to the ground jerked his shoulders up. His head whipped over to the front of the bar to see his table knocked onto its side the chairs scattered across the floor. He let out a deep chested growl, or his best impression of one, it really just sounded like the dull roar of a campfire, as he sat his table up right looking down at the offender with a disapproving glare.

The skeleton had his right eye squeezed shut as he held his flinching position from accidentally throwing himself into the tables. He was dressed in his usual all black attire, this time a tail coat, slacks, and a black button down, making a stark contrast to the rustic warm brown of his floorboards.

‘I thought you were done trying to teleport,’ Grillby folded his arms letting out a ‘tut’ of hot air as his hands signed the words he didn’t speak.

‘I’m alright by the way,’ Wingdings glared back at him making quick motions with his hands as he struggled to a sitting position. ‘Not my fault your door was locked,’ he signed after straightening up his attire. 

Grillby dropped his shoulders in annoyance as he extended a hand to the disheveled skeleton. ‘It might help if you came during business hours, or told me you were coming, now that I think about it, knocking also works,’ Grillby supplied before uprighting the table, he wasn’t really surprised when magic boney hands pushed all of the chairs back into place.

Wingdings moved his fingertips over the top of his soul in a clockwise motion, ‘sorry.’

Grillby’s flames let out several popping sounds and tongues of white, ‘I haven’t seen you in months Wingdings, so what are you apologizing for? The tables? The chairs? The fact that you worried me half to death last time and then you just disappear?’

Wingdings head dropped with guilt, ‘all of it. Sorry,’ he repeated the sign again but Grillby grabbed his wrist.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he signed after he dropped the skeleton’s thin limb.

‘Well luckily neither of us talk much,’ Wingdings shrugged but his teasing smile dropped when Grillby remained unphased. ‘This was a mistake I’ll go,’ he rubbed at his temples, no doubt working out the last of the pain caused from teleporting as he headed to the door.

“Stay,” Grillby’s voice was soft, barely louder than a murmur, it wasn’t uncommon for it to get lost in the sound of his flames but with the bar completely vacant even he could hear it. 

Wingdings turned around looking like a wounded child, an impressive feat for a monster nearly the height of a Boss Monster. His mind drifted back to the day Grillby found him splayed against the cavern floor, a hole pierced through his ribs. Pulling out Wingdings’s soul to realize for the first time how young he actually was. That was years ago now, how many? Grillby didn’t like to keep track.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Grillby hitched his thumb to the cabinet.

Wingdings looked to the direction Grillby gestured as hesitation twitched in his fingers, ‘I’m trying to wean off the stuff actually.’ Grillby’s flames sparked in surprise as he placed his hand against the skeletons forehead looking thoughtful. A smile grew across Wingdings skull as he batted the hand away, ‘you can’t even feel temperature there’s no point in that.’ The point was to get a laugh which Grillby was pleased to receive even as the skeleton tried his best to look annoyed.

The pair sat at the table they had reassembled making awkward half attempts at eye contact as they failed to move their hands towards any sense of conversation. Grillby’s fingers drummed against the table in cushioned ‘thunks’ as he leaned against his hand, his elbow firmly rooted on the table. Wingdings was the one who finally decided to show up, obviously there was something on his mind. The silence was alien, tedious, even amongst two monsters who hadn’t actually spoke more than a few sentences to each other in their prolonged existence.

Grillby was considerably more patient than the skeleton which showed as Wingdings hands kept twitching towards a conversation. Grillby exhaled a long stream of hot air earning a sharp flinch from his companion. Wingdings dropped his head in defeat, ‘how have you been?’

Grillby’s flames crackled with laughter, the flames along the top of his head crossing and swaying as small sparks fell.

‘What?’ Wingdings brows rose up widening the permanent glare of his sockets.

‘Why did you come here Dings?’ Grillby shook his head already exasperated with the conversation. He really didn’t want to sit here and pull information out of his friend but if he left him to his own devices he knew the skeleton would either stay silent or dodge the conversation.

Wingdings shrunk in his chair his oval eyelights rounding as he looked towards Grillby, ‘Asgore approved my project.’

Grillby had to think back a bit to try to piece together what the project was, let alone even if he did remember properly he had no idea of understanding what the words meant, ‘something about geo-molecular-conservation?’ Grillby’s hands tried clumsily to sign, he looked to the skeleton for some indication of how badly he had failed but the skeleton was smiling pleasantly. It was incredibly soft, complimented by his round eye lights, as it settled across his face. Grillby felt blue spark across his flames the longer he stared at the foreign expression.

‘Stars I missed you Grillby,’ the skeleton smiled after observing his flames for a while, ‘yeah that one,’ he winked. He had the distinct feeling Wingdings was sparing him some sort of embarrassment but it hardly seemed to help as more blue leapt through his flames.

‘Well it was a really, really, big project,’ Wingdings accentuated the sign for big as wide as his limby arms would allow. ‘Logically, he proposed we should build a team to execute the construction of the-’ he paused looking up for a second as a smile curled across his face, ‘geo-molecular-conservation unit.’

Grillby cupped his face in his hands, ‘what was it really?’ His fire moaned against the fate of his embarrassment. 

Wingdings puffed out his chest looking quite proud of himself, ‘but I liked your version better!’ 

Grillby gave him a harsh look, ‘fine, fine, it’s geothermal energy conversion,’ he signed the words slowly, Grillby still didn’t understand what they meant together but he appreciated being able to recognize the term at least. Wingdings looked up, contemplative again, as he tried to trace where the conversation was at, he absentmindedly reached for a glass that wasn’t in front of him before recoiling his hand tightly.

‘You were talking about a team,’ Grillby provided.

Wingdings bounced his head in two short nods, ‘so we need a team, because the project is so big. I would head it because I’m the only one with an inkling on how this crazy scheme actually works,’ he reached for the nonexistent glass again before quickly clasping his hands together. He pressed them down against the table before picking them up to sign again, ‘Asgore and I will start doing interviews this weekend on some candidates he’s found.’

‘That’s amazing Dings congrats,’ Grillby’s flames crackled pleasantly as yellow flames painted a smile across his face. He tilted his head slightly to the side as his friend’s eyelights burned a bright purple, ‘this is good right?’

‘It’s the best thing to ever happen to me,’ he signed dramatically, so over the top in each motion he couldn’t be anything other than sarcastic. ‘I get a title Grillby they are going to call me the Royal Scientist,’ magic hands appeared giving a shimmering display of crisp jazz hands. 

Wingdings mouth moved to make words but they sounded more like an echo flowers recording of an echo of the river pulling against the shore but still more hollow and deep. It wasn’t an unpleasant noise, unlike his friend’s yelling fits, but it was still so strange to see such a sound come from something alive. Grillby paid attention to the way his friends teeth moved, it was impossible to read a skeleton’s lips, because they didn’t have any, but he was fairly certain he’d just said ‘Royal Scientist’ again.

He reached for his invisible glass this time running his thumb along the nonexistent rim as a soothing technique. ‘There’s going to be a big announcement ceremony once we have a team assembled,’ his magic bullets signed as he stared at the spot of table exposed between his cupped hands. His magical hands stalled as his real ones tried to tightly grasp the glass he wasn’t actually holding. 

‘Doctor Wingdings,’ his hands signed dramatically as they let go of the glass they weren’t actually holding, ‘it just sounds ridiculous Grillby! All of it,’ his shoulders dropped, ‘I’m going to be in charge of a team where communication is essential to success and I can’t even speak in an understandable font.’ 

His fingers splayed open as he tapped them to his sternum he began ranting, his font making it impossible to understand what any of his over dramatic gestures meant. Even when he wasn’t speaking through his hands his hands were a constant flurry of dramatic gestures as they punctuated sentences only he could understand. Grillby leaned back in his chair waiting for the tirade of sound to end, crackling his flames a little louder than usual to try to counter out some of the noise from his friend.

Eventually Wingdings placed his head atop the table, with the last of his energy he sloppily signed, ‘I need a drink.’

Grillby crackled a short laugh as he pushed his chair out heading behind the bar and filling a glass with water before placing it in reach of their friend. Wingdings looked up eyeing Grillby curiously before looking at the liquid in the glass, he was equal parts disappointed and relieved. ‘How long has it been?’

Wingdings drank back the water quickly as he sat up, he gave a sad laugh as he considered his answer, ‘I’ve been trying for sobriety for about three months now but as of this moment,’ he swirled the remaining water in his glass, ‘three weeks tomorrow I think.’

‘That’s good,’ Grillby folded his arms trying to portray a level of pride across his features.

‘Not really, I thought it was good the first time I made three weeks, but-’ he paused looking every inch of his bones ashamed, ‘it didn’t last. Now I’m here again, figured the Royal Scientist shouldn’t be a drunk scarred pile of human garbage, but Asgore seems to think the scars and the human part don’t matter.’

“Wingdings,” Grillby’s voice was a sharp bark as his flames burned hotter, the monster in question shrunk in his chair looking up at the flame across from him. “Your scars are healing just like all of ours,” his voice was already getting tired from lack of use so he switched to his hands, ‘and you are a nervous, fussy, silly, brilliant, not so little skeleton.’ He smiled pleasantly as he rose to his feet placing a hand firmly on the table to assist his tired form.

He walked around the table scrutinizing carefully the seam like scars along the skeleton’s face with little care for the minimal distance between them. There was a section closest to his right eye that still jutted up towards his forehead but it didn’t go too far. There was an opening right where the forehead met the crown that was about the size of his pinky but it was nothing compared to the two large cracks he once had from each eye.

‘The fact that I was still growing did me a lot of good,’ Wingdings ran his index finger down the seam on his right eye tracing around the opening. ‘They’re doing good,’ he nodded agreeing with a statement Grillby had yet to make. ‘It’s stupid,’ he rubbed his face, ‘you still deal with nightmares, and flashbacks, your own scars and here I am complaining about something as stupid as holes in my hands.’

Grillby blinked letting his eyes wander down to his friend’s hands, he was so used to the holes he didn’t even regard them as odd anymore, they obviously hadn’t limited the skeletons enthusiastic gestures. The bones along the palm didn’t even give indication that they had ever been separate bones, they’d healed but different then the way his skull had.

‘For you,’ Grillby started not really knowing where he was going, ‘your scars are your deepest failure, your lingering regret, something that propels this delusion that you are anything other than what you are. It isn’t stupid, it’s just different,’ Grillby nodded, that came out alright. ‘Hey and at least your reactions aren’t as violent as mine,’ he leaned against the table suddenly aware of how tired he was.

‘That’s not your fault,’ Gaster’s hands flashed as his voice spoke in lowered tones.

He rubbed the skeleton’s head, ‘I know that now, took me a while.’ He half sat half stood against the table, ‘and you are going to do wonderful things Dings,’ his flames softened, ‘you already have. I’m glad you’ll finally get some recognition for it.’ 

‘You really think I can do this?’ Wingdings expression stirred Grillby’s soul, for once his friend didn’t look determined but hopeful.

“I know so,” Grillby spoke so the confidence of his tone could warm him like his flames.

Wingdings expression grew distant as his teeth tapped out something unspoken and his fingers twitched with thought. He finished off his water glass before rising to his full height, ‘well then I suppose you and Asgore can’t both be wrong.’ He rolled his eye lights as a smirk grew across his face, ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to visit.’

Grillby waved his hand to the door,‘Just don’t do it again,’ Grillby smiled as his friend made his way to the door.

‘I won’t,’ Gaster pressed his index finger to his lip before tapping it down with the fingers spread apart on the side of his other hand curled into a fist, ‘promise.’

‘Good,’ Grillby nodded, ‘and no more teleporting.’

Wingdings had his hand on the doorknob before he turned dropping his shoulders dramatically, ‘and you need to get some sleep, who in their right mind is up at this hour?’

‘Look at the pot calling the kettle black,’ Grillby’s hands were accompanied by a scoff.

‘I’m a skeleton, I don’t need a lot of sleep,’ Wingdings countered, ‘you on the other hand have obviously not been eating properly, your flame is wimpy.’

‘Wimpy?’ Grillby’s flames popped at the insult. ‘The only reason you’ve been eating at all is because Toriel has made you,’ he folded his arms daring the skeleton to argue.

‘Good night!’ Wingdings signed harshly undoing the locks with practiced ease as he tore open the door to the cold of the early morning.

“Good night Doctor Wingdings,” Grillby chuckled.

The skeleton mumbled quietly in his font before he let his whole body droop, ‘it sounds worse in common!’

Grillby laughed, ‘ask Asgore for a new name I’m sure he’d help you out.’

Wingdings turned back to Grillby signing a quick, ‘ha ha,’ before the wind pulled the door shut between them. 

Grillby sat against the front window watching as the black clad skeleton slipped into the early morning. He folded his arms a proud smile tugging across his flames as he imagined the skeleton surrounded by fellow science-ers signing away amiably with like minded monsters. Hopefully he’d still remember the lonely bar in Snowdin and the humble barkeep who never had any idea what he was talking about but tried his best.

His flames let out a soft whine of a crackle, maybe they were a little wimpy, he stretched his arms out finally having the time to finish his previous thoughts, the couch it was.

**Author's Note:**

> I rated this teen and up just because of the mentioning of drinking, not sure if that warrants the rating.
> 
> I’ve been wanting to write a snippet between these two for a while this turned out, adequate.


End file.
